Apparatus or plant for treating liquids such as milk



Oct. 24, 1939. H. F. GOODMAN APPARATUS 0R PLANT FOR TREATING LIQUIDSSUCH AS MILK Filed Feb. 19, 1957 2 Sheets-Sheet l Army/v9 Oct. 24, 1939.

H. F. GOODMAN 2,177,248

APPARATUS 0R PLANT FOR TREATING LIQUIDS SUCH AS MILK Filed Feb. 19, 19372 Sheets-Sheet 2 Fig. 2.

HTTQR/VEY .20 Patents Nos. 229,438 and 270,030 is frequently issurmounted by a rotary plate I!) formed on its mosphere, troller. Theouter end of the groove or passage 25 between the source of liquidsupply and the inlet with the inlet pipe I or provision is made for 30ments, there being a separate conduit for each For these purposes, thecontroller may be pro- 40 In order that the said invention may beclearly ate groove or recessed portion l4 communicating 45 Patented Oct.24, 1939 2,17 7 ,248

LIQUID-S SUCH AS BULK Hugh Frederick Goodman, London, England, assignorto The Aluminum Plant & Vessel Company Limited, Wandsworth, England, aBritish company Application February 19, 1937, Serial No. 126,670 InGreat Britain February 28, 1936 5 Olaims. (Cl. 137-21) This inventionrelates to apparatus or plant for exchanger or other source of supply ofheated treating liquids, and is particularly concerned milk, and theother end of which is connected with apparatus wherein a source ofliquid supply with a central opening 2 formed in the fixed body isrequired to be connected with each of a series portion '3 of acontroller. Disposed around or on .5 of tanks or compartments insuccession. 'The ineach side of the controller are the holding tanks 5vention is more particularly concerned with apor compartments, intowhich the heated milk is to paratus or plant such as is used for what isbe delivered, the arrangement shown being one generally known as thepositive holding process in which there are six holding tanks orcompartof treating or pasteurisi-ng such liquids as milk. ments 3arranged in two groups of three. In

10 In the positive holding process above referred addition to thecentral inlet opening 2, the fixed to, the raw milk after being heatedto a predebody portion of the controller is formed with a terminedtemperature is passed into one or more plurality of radially disposedand preferably of a series of holding tanks or compartments anddownwardly curved outlet passages 6 connected held therein for adefinite period of time before by a series of conduits l with inletopenings 8 15 being discharged, formed in the bottoms of various tanksor com- 1 For the purpose of controlling the charging partments, therebeing a separate outlet passage of the tanks or compartments in propersequence and a separate conduit for each tank. The conand at the propertimes, a master controller or troller is disposed below the level of thebottoms rotary valve of the nature described in British of the tanks,and the fixed body portion thereof used, said controller or valve beingarranged underside with a radially disposed passage or and adapted tocontrol cyclically connections groove I 2, preferably of inverted Ushape, havbetween the tanks or compartments 'anda source ing its innerend registering with the central of vacuum, a source of compressed airand atinlet opening 2 of the fixed portion of the con- According to thepresent invention, there is I2 is adapted, upon rotation of the plateID, to provided an improved form of apparatus or plant register witheach of the outlet passages 6 in turn, wherein a controller or rotary'valve is provided the arrangement being such that either only one forcontrolling cyclically the liquid connections of the conduits 1 can beconnected at a time points of the various tanks or. compartments,establishing connection with the next conduit bewhich inlet points aresituated at the bottoms of tfore connection with the previous one isinterthe tanks or compartments, and each of them is rupt'ed.

normally closed by a spring or gravity actuated Provision is made forpreventing milk escaping 85 valve adapted to permit liquid to passinwardly from one tank or compartment from gaining ac- 35 but notoutwardly of the tank. 'cess to or contaminating milk in another tank Incarrying the invention into efiect, one side or compartment, or forpreventing milk being of the controller is coupled by a series ofconduits supplied to one tank or compartment from gainwith the inlets ofthe various tanks or comparting access to any other tank or compartment.

tank, and the controller is provided with a rotary vided with means forbye-passing to atmosphere or otherwise displaceable member provided withany milk that may leak through the controller, ports and adapted tocontrol communication beand, in the embodiment illustrated, theundertween the said conduits and the source of liquid. side of therotary plate to is formed with an arcuunderstood and readily carriedinto effect, the with or merging into an annular groove l6. Ansame willnow be more fully described with refnular groove 15 is connected withdrain pipe is erence to the accompanying drawings in which, by apassageway shown in dot and dash lines in Fig. l is a vertical sectionalview of a part of a Fig. 1, thereby draining any milk remaining in inmilk pasteurising plant incorporating the inventhe groove 55 into thereceiver .20 by way of the tion; and drain pipe I8. Rotary plate 10 isprovided with a Fig. 2 is a plan view of the arrangement shown vent I!(Fig. 2) to vent the recessed portion M, in Fig. 1. groove 16, and suchof the conduits I as are dis- In the accompanying drawings, l is theinlet connected from the passage l2, to atmosphere. pipe, one end ofwhich is connected with a heat The arcuate extent and disposition of thegroove 55 or recess M are such that the conduits T of all tanks otherthan the one being filled are connected through the groove l6 and outletl8 to atmosphere. The controller being below the level of the bottom ofthe holding tanks, it is impossible for milk to pass into any but thedesired tank, as the filling conduits of the other tanks are allconnected to atmosphere, and any leakage of milk, e. g. past the tankvalves or along the joint between the fixed and the movable parts of thecontroller, will drain away into the receiver 29.

The displaceable part of the controller may be operated manually or bypower means.

The tanks may also, if desired, be provided with means for dischargingthe same by a syphoning action, and a second controller may be providedso that the outlet therefrom is adapted to be connected with each of aseries of downwardly extending pipes 21 as is described in i3ritishPatent No. 469,837, accepted August 4,

Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my saidinvention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare thatwhat I claim is:

1. A rotary valve comprising a fixed body portion, a common inletpassage and a plurality of outlet passages formed in said body portion,a drainage groove common to said outlet passages and adapted tocommunicate with all of them in succession, a plate rotatably mountedupon said fixed body portion, said plate in rotating connecting each ofsaid outlet passages in succession to said common inlet passage whilesimultaneously cutting off all communication between each said outletpassage when so connected and the drainage groove and between all of theremaining outlet passages and the common inlet passage withoutinterrupting communication between the said remaining outlet passagesand the common drainage groove, and a drainage port connecting saidannular groove with atmosphere.

2. A rotary valve comprising in combination a fixed body portion, acentrally disposed common inlet passage, a plurality of separate outletpassages radially surrounding said inlet passage in spaced relationthereto and to each other, and an annular channel surrounding saidoutlet passages in spaced relation, formed in the upper surface of saidbody portion, a plate rotatably mounted upon said body portion, theunderside of said plate engaging with the upper surface of the bodyportion to effect sealing contact, recesses with partition wallstherebetween formed in the underside of said plate, one of said recessesbeing effective to establish communication between said common inletpassage and each of said outlet passages individually and in successionas said plate rotates, the other recess being vented to atmosphere, saidother recess being effective to connect all of the remaining outletpassages with the annular channel as said plate rotates, said partitionwalls engaging the upper surface of the body portion in sealing contactto out off all communication between the inlet passage and the annularchannel, and an outlet pipe for draining said annular channel toatmosphere.

3. In a pasteurising system and in combination, a plurality of receivingand holding tanks, each tank having an opening at the bottom thereof,check valves positioned in and normally sealing each of said bottomopenings, each check valve being operable to admit a liquidto be saidoutlet passageways, an annular drainage groove in said distributingvalve, and a drainage port connected with said drainage groove fordraining any surplus liquid remaining in "saiddrainage groove to acollection point external to said distributing valve, said distributingvalve in rotating, automatically connecting said common inlet passage toeach of said outlet passages separately and in cyclic order to establishsuccessive passages to said receiving tanks for filling each of saidtanks in rotation with a liquid to be held therein until pasteurisationthereof is completed, cutting off all communication between-theestablished passage and all of the remaining outlet passages, andmaintaining communication between said common drainage port and allremaining outlet passages via said annular drainage groove, each tankbeing open at the top under normal conditions of operation to permitprompt removal of the held liquid from each of said tanks separately andin cyclic order as soon as pasteurisation is complete.

4. In a pasteurising system and in combination, a plurality of receivingand holding tanks, each tank having an opening at the bottom thereof,check valves positioned in each of said bottom openings, each valvebeing operable to permit liquid, to pass into its associated tank and tocut off return flow of said liquid, a rotary distributing valvepositioned below the level of the tank bottoms, said distributing valvehaving a central inlet passage and a plurality of radially disposedoutlet passages, the number of outlet passages being equal to the numberof tanks, individual pipe connections between each outlet passage andeach tank, a drainage passage formed within said distributing valve fordraining unpasteurised liquid therefrom, a port connecting with saiddrainage passage for discharging the unpasteurised liquid at a centralpoint for collection preparatory to re-use, said distributing valvebeing operable in rotating, to;

and means, individual to each tank and connected with the top thereof,operable to effect immediate removal of the held liquid from each ofsaid tanks independently and in the same order in which they were filledas soon as the held liquid is pasteurised.

5. In a pasteurizing system and in combination, a plurality of receivingand holding tanks, each tank having an opening at the bottom thereof,check valves positioned in and normally sealing each of said bottomopenings, each check valve being operable to' admit a liquid to bepasteurized into said tank and to cut off the,

return flow thereof, a controller positioned below the level of saidtank bottoms, said controller being made up ,ofa fixed part and a rotarypart, said fixed part having a common inlet passage for receiving, and aplurality of separate outlet passages for discharging a liquid to bepasteurized, a plurality of conduits for separately interconnecting saidtank openings and said outlet passages, said rotary part of thecontroller having formed therein a passage registering at one end withthe common inlet passage, the passage in said rotary part in rotating,automatically connecting said common inlet passage to each of saidoutlet passages separately and in cyclic order to establish a passagewith each of said receiving tanks in succession to fill each of saidtanks in rotation with a liquid to be held therein until pasteurizationthereof is completed, and cutting off all communication between theestablished passage and all of the remaining outlet passages, and aventing groove between the fixed part and the rotary part of thecontroller for venting to atmosphere all the outlet passages not for thetime being connected with the inlet passage.

HUGH FREDERICK GOODMAN.

